:32BitsOnline: Linux in Business: Did Microsoft Try To Kill UNIX?
32BitsOnline: Linux in Business: Did Microsoft Try To Kill UNIX? Dec 1, 1999, 06 :06 UTC (11 Talkback[s]) (10568 reads) (Other stories by Tom Adelstein)
"If Microsoft does have a hold on corporate messaging, can the enterprise return to making sound
technology decisions by breaking that hold? Perhaps, even, re-forming the question to ask (given the
rise of other messaging technologies etc.): Can we trust corporations who have made questionable or
inferior technological decisions in the past to make better technological decisions in the future? Or will
the sway and tug of marketing ("... nobody ever got fired for buying IBM") and reductionist thinking
continue to hold?..."
"Microsoft claims that the United States Justice Department has interfered with innovation in the
computer industry. One can't help but wonder what people would call the collective effort of the
developers who created Linux. The Linux community's innovation came as a reaction to the stifling
presence of a firm now labeled a monopoly."
"If enterprise messaging helped Microsoft dominate the market and put a dent in UNIX's market share,
then perhaps a Linux solution can reverse the damage. Where DEC claimed that NT reduced the cost of
ownership from $1675 to $250 per user, Linux ought to reduce that figure further."
